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Zoom with the Author - Rosie Milne 2 February 2021

Zoom with the Author - Rosie Milne
2 February 2021 (Tuesday)
3pm to 4pm (KL time)
(meeting opens at 2.45pm)
Organizer: Spiral Synergy Events, Penang

What happens when an adoring young bride is met on the doorstep of her new home by her husband’s former mistress? Frank, Rose and Nony are about to find out.

It is 1924 and the British rule Malaya. Frank is a colonial administrator in a remote district deep in the jungle. Rose is the innocent young bride he’s just brought out from England. Nony is the native mistress he’d previously abandoned, along with their four children.

Join us as Singapore-based author Rosie Milne talks about her inspiration for "Circumstance: Truth & Lies in the Malayan Jungle" and also her previous novel "Olivia & Sophia" the (fictional) diaries of the wives of Stamford Raffles!

Email info@spiralsynergy.com to register.

Good to see Periplus bookstore open in Soekarno–

Good to see Periplus bookstore open in Soekarno–Hatta International Airport Terminal 3.
Posted @withregram • @periplus_t3inter Mataram a novel by Tony Reid
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Contact our knowledgeable and helpful staffs for fast respond, fast delivery and easy payment without hidden cost.
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#newyear #periplus #huntingperiplus #book #importedbook #bibliophile #bookworm #booksniffer #bibliomania #tsundoku #biblioarti #Indonesia #BuyBooksfromHome #Discounts #Allowances #Diskon #FreeOngkir #DoubleDeals #Gopay #Dana #BCA #Octoclicks #stayathome

‘Tough issues explored with pinpoint accuracy ..

‘Tough issues explored with pinpoint accuracy ... erudite in its exploration of unusually difficult issues and ideas,’ writes journalist Robert Forster of ‘Death of a Coast Watcher’ by Anthony English in ‘PNG Attitude’. ‘[English’s] greatest achievement is to have sat convincingly inside the heads of his principal characters, including the Tolai women, and relayed their most sensitive innermost feeling and thoughts ... Later this year I intend to read his book a second time and digest its many messages at a slower pace. “Death of a Coast Watcher” deserves it.’
Read the full review in PNG Attitude. https://www.pngattitude.com
#png #papuanewguinea #monsoonbooks #bouganville #kiribati @anthony_tony_english

Delighted to see 2 Monsoon titles as well as books

Delighted to see 2 Monsoon titles as well as books by our publisher friends selected for the @penangmonthly round-up of 8 influential nonfiction titles published in 2019/2020.
Posted @withregram • @penangmonthly (DECEMBER 2020) Inspired by the Penang Book Prize which due to Covid-19 was cancelled this year, Penang Monthly reviews eight of the most significant nonfiction books published between 2019-2020, that have Malaysia as their backdrop. Which selected reads made the list? Click the link in bio find out.

#book #penang #penangmonthly #bookstagram #malaysia #monsoonbooks

Congratulations to author George Quinn, whose book

Congratulations to author George Quinn, whose book “Bandit Saints of Java: How Java’s eccentric saints are challenging fundamentalist Islam in modern Indonesia” has just won the nonfiction award at the ACT book awards in Canberra, Australia.

ACT NONFICTION AWARDS
2020 Nonfiction Award Winner George Quinn for Bandit Saints of Java (Monsoon Books)

Java’s pilgrimage culture is a dense, batik-like pattern of contradictions: seriousness collides with laughter; curiosity with bewilderment; piety with scepticism; intense spirituality with, in some places, the joy of shopping.

The pilgrimage culture on the island of Java in Indonesia – the world’s largest Muslim country – is a rebuke to the conservative orthodoxy that has been gaining ground in Indonesia’s religious landscape since the 1980s. In the rhetoric of this orthodoxy the “real” Islam is pure and exclusive. Piety comes from obedience to religious authority and its rules. Local pilgrimage is anything but pure and exclusive or rigidly authoritarian. It is powerfully Islamic but it fuses Islam with local history, the ancient power of place and a pastiche of devotional practices with roots deep in the pre-Islamic past. Quietly but tenaciously – just outside the great echo chamber of public space – it is growing as fast as the higher proﬁle neo-orthodoxy.

Bandit Saints of Java delves deep under the surface of modern Indonesia, exploring personalities and stories in the weird world of local pilgrimage, where Middle Eastern Islam wrestles with the ancient power of Javanese civilisation. It paints an astonishing portrait of Islam as it is practised today – largely invisible to journalists, scholars and tourists – by many of Java’s 130 million people.

#monsoonbooks #indonesia #java #islam #islamindonesia #nonfiction #awardwinning #australia

Posted @withregram • @gerakbudayabookshop A RIDD

Posted @withregram • @gerakbudayabookshop A RIDDLE WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA: FREE BOOKS

It bears repeating that the past nine months have not been kind to the book trade. But amid the closures, redundancies, heartache, there have also been acts of kindness, of solidarity. So we are able to make a very special offer thanks to the generosity of Leslie Lim of Pansing, one of our enduring supporters, and Phil Tatham, publisher at @monsoonbooks. They have gifted us thirty mystery packages – books wrapped neatly in old copies of Mekong Review. We have no idea what each package contains.

➽ So here's the deal: spend RM100 in the bookshop or through an online order and you get a FREE book package. Can't say fairer than that.

Lt. Col. JP Cross OBE, author of a series of Gurkh

Lt. Col. JP Cross OBE, author of a series of Gurkha military fiction for Monsoon Books, including "Operation Black Rose", "Operation Janus", "Operation Blind Spot", "Operation Stealth" and forthcoming "Operation Four Rings", talks on BBC Breakfast TV about India Remembers, a project for fallen soldiers. Aged 95, JP Cross is a retired British officer who served with Gurkha units for nearly forty years. He has been an Indian frontier soldier, jungle fighter, policeman, military attaché, Gurkha recruitment officer and a linguist researcher, and he is the author of many books. He has fought in Burma, Indo-China, Malaya and Borneo and served in India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Laos and Nepal where he now lives. Author John le Carré wrote of Cross' military novel, Operation Janus: "Nobody in the world is better qualified to tell this story of the Gurkhas’ deadly jungle battles against Communist insurgency in Malaya in the 1950s. Cross spins his tale with the eye of incomparable experience." For more information about JP Cross' books, do visit the website. @bbcbreakfast #monsoonbooks #bbcbreakfast #gurkha #militaryfiction

George Quinn, author of “Bandit Saints of Java”, will speak on a panel of international authors writing about Indonesia at the online Jakarta Content Week. Date: 12 Nov 2020. See the forum website for registration details. This is a free event. #jaktent #monsoonbooks

Good to see @booksactually is up and running in it

Good to see @booksactually is up and running in it’s new home and is selling Singapore author Rosie Milne’s two works of fiction set in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia: “Olivia & Sophia” (fictionalised diaries of Raffles’ two wives) and “Circumstance” (historical romance with a twist). Both make great Xmas presents! Posted @withregram • @kenny.leck WWW.BOOKSACTUALLYSHOP.COM

In post-WWII Laos, Vietnamese communists secretly

In post-WWII Laos, Vietnamese communists secretly commence to infiltrate the kingdom. They are countered by four dedicated Lao ‘moles’ who try to thwart these aims. Gurkha Colonel Jason Rance is unwittingly dragged into a confrontation between one of the Lao moles and a Thai spy and the mole gives him a ring as a reward for saving his life. During his appointment in Laos as military attaché, Rance becomes a target of the KGB and of the Vietnamese communists, and is sought by the remaining three Lao moles because of the ring in his possession.
Rance’s two Lao language instructors are nieces of the Lao king and London hopes that, by stealth, Rance might, through them, persuade the king delay his coronation no further in an effort to prevent the spread of communism southwards. Can the new military attaché manage to do the seemingly impossible?
Based on historical fact and the author’s personal experience, Operation Stealth is the fourth in a series of books involving Gurkha military units that may be read in any order and includes Operation Black Rose, Operation Janus, Operation Blind Spot and Operation Four Rings. The author, JP Cross, a much revered retired Gurkha colonel, draws on real characters and events he witnessed across various theatres of war.
Available from leading bookstores. #monsoonbooks #militaryfiction #laos #vietnam #vietnamwar

Makcik Maryam once again investigates murder in a

Makcik Maryam once again investigates murder in a small Kelantan town. Someone has been killed at a top-spinning contest, hit by a gasing, a heavy metal spinning top, that had no business flying as it did according to all laws of physics. Malaysia’s most famous female amateur sleuth suspects not only foul play, but black magic, and is determined to rid Kelantan of the source of evil. Join Makcik Maryam in her fifth adventure assisting the Kota Bharu Police Department, or vice versa, in “Spinning Top”, the latest in the award-winning Kain Songket Mysteries series. Available from leading bookstores. #kelantan #kotabharu #malaysia #malaysianliterature #detectivefiction

Head over to the Singapore Writers Festival bookst

Head over to the Singapore Writers Festival bookstore to watch an interview with Sue Paul, author of “Jeopardy of Every Wind”, the first full biography of Captain Thomas Bowery, swashbuckling 17th-century trader and the author of the first ever Malay-English dictionary. #swf2020 #monsoonbooks

Head over to the Singapore Writers Festival bookst

Head over to the Singapore Writers Festival bookstore to watch an interview with Professor John D. Greenwood, author of newly released “Hungry Ghosts”, volume 3 in the Singapore Saga, a series of historical fiction that spans the first 100 years of Singapore. #swf2020 #monsoonbooks

Posted @withregram • @learninghappenseverywhere

Posted @withregram • @learninghappenseverywhere Do you watch/read the news with your kids?

I know not everyone does, and that doing so can provide a very slanted view of the world - but anyhow, at our house, we do. But we don’t do only local news - we try to sample through other places the kids are connected to, that they’ve travelled to, that have meaning for them. It shows them a non-touristy view of the place, what issues are being experienced there, and allows them to compare what news media there shows compared to news media here. Key point being, we talk extensively about what we see being reported/not reported.

The point of my babble above is that some months ago, back when Covid-19 still felt countries away, we were inspired to learn about the situation for domestic helpers and other migrant workers in Singapore, since the outbreak in the worker dorms had highlighted their plight. We’d discussed it - this topic breaks my heart - but eventually moved onto other topics, until I came across this book and we all read it. It’s aimed at a middle-grade audience, and both my kids highly recommend it for bringing to light the plight of these domestic workers in a very balanced, yet kid-friendly way. It highlights very nicely the impossible situation these workers are in, and the importance of teaching the next generation to prioritize kindness and social justice.

Caveat: for a middle grade book, there are a surprising amount of swear words in this book, from both the 10 year old protagonist and her mother. No filter! And the resolution of the plot line is quite white-saviour-ish, 🙄, but I suppose that can be another discussion point for guided reading. 🤷🏻‍♀️ This isn’t a book to leave with the kids to enjoy on their own - it’s definitely going to need discussion of all parts.

#homeschool #homeschoolmom #raisingreaders #middlegradebooks #middlegradefiction #bookwormkids #thisishowwehomeschool #unschooling #chipmunksofinstagram @monsoonbooks

Posted @withregram • @literasea.bookclub “Ther

Posted @withregram • @literasea.bookclub “There wasn’t any fiction about Brunei; it might be novel to have a sort of window into that small country.”⁣
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In April, the LiteraSEA Book Club caught up with the author of Written In Black, Dr. K.H. Lim via Skype. We talked about Lim’s inspiration for the book and wondered if the story had been based on his own childhood — here we share the highlights with you!⁣
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We also caught up about the Bruneian literary scene and censorship, but we’ll share them with you some other time ⁣👀
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Thank you Dr. KH Lim for spending time with us, and @monsoonbooks for connecting!⁣
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#LiteraSEAbookclub #LiteraSEA #southeastasianliterature #asianliterature #southeastasia #brunei #bruneianliterature #KHLim #writteninblack #bookstagram #igbooks #diverseclassics #literature

Register for a Zoom lecture on “Writing Indonesi

Register for a Zoom lecture on “Writing Indonesian History” by Prof. Anthony Reid of ANU at bit.ly/Guest-LectureS3 (Thursday 20 Aug, 1pm WIB, 2pm Singapore, 4pm AEST, 6am GMT)

Monsoon Books has yet to hear back from the Indonesian organizers but we believe the original Indonesian flyer should have read Thursday 20 Aug, not Tuesday 20 Aug (so we have edited their flyer). Please try the following login credentials if you don’t hear directly from the Indonesian organizers:

Meeting ID: 965 8813 8717
Passcode: 676947
Or click on the following link to join:
https://undip-ac-id.zoom.us/j/96588138717?pwd=dU9SSksrQlFSY2NHM1Z0eUZHQzcvQT09